What does abandonment feel like?

[Abstract]

Hey grit. Totally understand needing intellectulisation. I couldn't have survived generally or therapy without it before. Have you ever done DBT and looked at Wise Mind?

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Abandonment events in bold
Abandonment is one of my biggest issues,

I dealt with it as child and as a young adult, and at times as an adult too.
My parents were inattentive to begin as my dad worked all the time to cope and my mom being bi-polar ran around on him.
Then I was left in the care of a neighbor at age 5 only to be molested there. (my sister was molested by same person)
Then my mom died when I was age 6. Then we all went into foster care when I was at age 7. My older sister leaves at age 17 to get away from alcoholic step-mom. Abandoned by Alcoholic step-mom at trains station as punishment. Sent to live with co-worker friend of my fathers. Sent to Treatment center for kids which ended up being the best 3 years of my life (loved, cared for, respected, educated, etc all the things a child should get), Ripped from the treatment center by DSS due to age and to live with my dad and my 2nd stepmom. Ignored at home due to my 2nd step mom being bat-crap-crazy bi-polar, sent by DSS into group homes (several), sent into Hospital, sent to live with nothing ending up at the Y, sent to live with someone who ended up being a mail order priest pedophile, Sent by DSS into group home, sent into hospital, Last group home did not want me back, Sent into EHS by DSS,

Abused by EHS for 1.5 years, complaints of abuse to DSS willfully ignored, abuse allowed to continue by DSS. This 1.5 year period was the ultimate abandonment because I was knowing left in a place I could not leave (juvy status) and DSS allowed abuse to continue so I had to endure severe abuse (some abuse included the use of a katana which is essentially a cattle prod adapted for use on humans, this under the international definitions qualifies as torture). No end of abuse in sight, EHS engineered scene to get me out of the group home because I would soon be old enough they could get no money for my care, this was followed by a fake claim they used to do it by jail.

The only solace I get is the system that sent me into a cauldron of abuse and left me there has over the years spend as much as $2 Million on my care.

Homeless spent 1 week 24/7 working round the clock each day until collapse. Employer uncaring. Homeless again after short bit of help, starving and had to enter sex-work to not starve. Married to only have spouse leave after 14 months. Hospitals (up to over 35 in 1992, likely 50 today )and Adult Group homes.

Roommate left me homeless, more hospitals, Old Sister passed away

as you can see I have had my fill of abandonment, very little supportive, accepting parts in my life except for 3 years (5% of my lift is all I got to look at as good). , never a solid childhood, or even a home, or family. So much its one of the things I fear over abuse itself.

The only sure things I have are that I myself put in place, can't count on anyone

 

[grit]

Abandonment events in bold
Abandonment is one of my biggest issues,

I dealt with it as child and as a young adult, and at times as an adult too.
My parents were inattentive to begin as my dad worked all the time to cope and my mom being bi-polar ran around on him.
Then I was left in the care of a neighbor at age 5 only to be molested there. (my sister was molested by same person)
Then my mom died when I was age 6. Then we all went into foster care when I was at age 7. My older sister leaves at age 17 to get away from alcoholic step-mom. Abandoned by Alcoholic step-mom at trains station as punishment. Sent to live with co-worker friend of my fathers. Sent to Treatment center for kids which ended up being the best 3 years of my life (loved, cared for, respected, educated, etc all the things a child should get), Ripped from the treatment center by DSS due to age and to live with my dad and my 2nd stepmom. Ignored at home due to my 2nd step mom being bat-crap-crazy bi-polar, sent by DSS into group homes (several), sent into Hospital, sent to live with nothing ending up at the Y, sent to live with someone who ended up being a mail order priest pedophile, Sent by DSS into group home, sent into hospital, Last group home did not want me back, Sent into EHS by DSS,

Abused by EHS for 1.5 years, complaints of abuse to DSS willfully ignored, abuse allowed to continue by DSS. This 1.5 year period was the ultimate abandonment because I was knowing left in a place I could not leave (juvy status) and DSS allowed abuse to continue so I had to endure severe abuse (some abuse included the use of a katana which is essentially a cattle prod adapted for use on humans, this under the international definitions qualifies as torture). No end of abuse in sight, EHS engineered scene to get me out of the group home because I would soon be old enough they could get no money for my care, this was followed by a fake claim they used to do it by jail.

The only solace I get is the system that sent me into a cauldron of abuse and left me there has over the years spend as much as $2 Million on my care.

Homeless spent 1 week 24/7 working round the clock each day until collapse. Employer uncaring. Homeless again after short bit of help, starving and had to enter sex-work to not starve. Married to only have spouse leave after 14 months. Hospitals (up to over 35 in 1992, likely 50 today )and Adult Group homes.

Roommate left me homeless, more hospitals, Old Sister passed away

as you can see I have had my fill of abandonment, very little supportive, accepting parts in my life except for 3 years (5% of my lift is all I got to look at as good). , never a solid childhood, or even a home, or family. So much its one of the things I fear over abuse itself.

The only sure things I have are that I myself put in place, can't count on anyone

Hi Recoveringfromptsd

I have read some of your posts before and remember the horrors you grew up with. I feel your pain. I am sorry you were dealt with the wrong hands as a child. I really hope you find one person in the world who believes you and cares about you enough to allow you to be just you around them.

Thinking of you.

 

[grit]

Hey grit. Totally understand needing intellectulisation. I couldn't have survived generally or therapy without it before. Have you ever done DBT and looked at Wise Mind?

Hi Abstract,

Thank you for this comment. I never heard the wise mind...interesting. I will look up and learn more about it.

I use psycho-dynamic-psychotherapy where free association is used. I need to bypass all cognition and risk a nervous breakdown in order to build my foundation and face my fears. It is my belief what hurt me as a baby cannot hurt me today. I only have this fear because the sexual assault that happened to me cannot happen to me today as adult. and all other violence against only happened because I was a child. I will say though, I have my husband to help me keep in the reality and as second opinion if my therapist recommends something that is beyond my peripheral knowledge at the moment,
I will look into attachment issue more because feelings of detachment surfaced the last couple weeks in relation to my abandonment feelings. But that is that.

abandonment is not the biggest wound for me though. My biggest one is the feeling of being attacked, fear, terror and all they entail for behaviour displays, rage, hostility and fear which was what kept me in dissociation cause I did not know how to express so I fell sleep forever! I felt them but

DBT in used for borderline personality organization where I am and I prefer more flexibility in therapy - client led.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Hey grit. Totally understand needing intellectulisation. I couldn't have survived generally or therapy without it before. Have you ever done DBT and looked at Wise Mind?

Sorry for the size of my post, a lot to be said

I have had DBT, been thru the entire set twice, had to stop DBT because it was at same I had EMDR. The EMDR I had to stop as well because it was causing body memories. I am in the most intensive CBT I have ever been in.

My T is having me confront all of it slowly, so I can reconcile it (towards wise mind), that also includes having to confront DSS as well, something we are doing together. My T is sort of special, before she got her LGPC credentials (sort of equivalent to psychologist in MD) she was a teacher in an abusive relationship which led to her own suicide attempt, and psych unit stay (same unit I have been on twice). So she has been there herself, with trauma, so she has an understanding of what I am dealing with from her own personal experience.

She also has doe something no one ever bother to do, and that is really listen and not judge, and she has read every record about me available to get a real understanding of my mind from its past, including my own accounts. She has really invested herself in really not just helping me deal with being safe in the present. She wanted to see me twice a week, I can only afford once a week. Still its a short of a enough time I don't have a chance to get into trouble in the interim.

Until this T I had a lot of disparate moments and unsafe times, feeling trapped by the intrusive nature of past trauma. For the first time I have some hope of improving how it affects me, because we are actually dealing with it all so we can find ways for me to handle it all better. In many ways its like uncorking a bottle. At first there is a lot of action, then it settles down. I guess the word that speaks to it is "unstuffing".

With this T if I have moments where I am unsafe. For the first time I can not fear disclosing it openly, I can disclose and not worry about being made to go to the hospital. Instead we try to work through it with a plan. She also has a very detailed safety plan and safety contract which designed to hold me accountable. For the first time my actions while unsafe have real consequences that I won't like, so as to make me think twice, and encourage me to take the steps to feel safer.

Many of you have had DBT and EMDR, they seem to only serve to either heighten the effects of my trauma, or just keep me from letting this get worse. That may have been ok if my last T had not crossed boundaries 3 times that made me not trust her. Nevertheless I gave it a chance to be worked out. It did not, I changed providers and got a new T. One who is helping me directly confront my thinking. For instance last session she zoomed in "again" on how I handle trust. Trying to get me to see trust differently. Trust being something I have not been able to do, seeing everything as a potential threat.

This CBT with this T seems to be my best path so far. I actually look forward to my sessions even when I have bad things to deal with.

At least now I feel I have a chance at feeling better with it all. Maybe someday it may be good to return to DBT, I don't think back then I was ready for EMDR or DBT. The latter because it sometimes connected with the past. And I was triggered a lot.

Back then I got triggered and sort of went into a disassociated state. But that has not been the case with this new T. I think instead of my mind shutting it down, my mind is letting me work it out with her help.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

Hi Abstract,

Thank you for this comment. I never heard the wise mind...interesting. I will look up and learn more about it.

I use psycho-dynamic-psychotherapy where free association is used. I need to bypass all cognition and risk a nervous breakdown in order to build my foundation and face my fears. It is my belief what hurt me as a baby cannot hurt me today. I only have this fear because the sexual assault that happened to me cannot happen to me today as adult. and all other violence against only happened because I was a child. I will say though, I have my husband to help me keep in the reality and as second opinion if my therapist recommends something that is beyond my peripheral knowledge at the moment,
I will look into attachment issue more because feelings of detachment surfaced the last couple weeks in relation to my abandonment feelings. But that is that.

abandonment is not the biggest wound for me though. My biggest one is the feeling of being attacked, fear, terror and all they entail for behaviour displays, rage, hostility and fear which was what kept me in dissociation cause I did not know how to express so I fell sleep forever! I felt them but

DBT in used for borderline personality organization where I am and I prefer more flexibility in therapy - client led.

@grit and @Abstract This post struck me as having some elements of what I am dealing with, and I agree there is no one way to deal with any of this, what works for some may not for others. I tried the usual things. In many ways @Abstract I I am following a path that has some elements of your path, yet different. On the building a foundation and face my fears of possibly being attacked, and the terror of happening. that is sort of what my T and me are working on now.

But for me the cannot hurt me today does not apply to me today. But that's because my trauma involved the very agency that was required by law to protect me. In today's world its hard for me to not see every moment as a perceived potential threat, sometimes the threats become real. It has left me with feeling as if everything is a potential threat.

What's good in my life right now is my T has zoomed in on the very issue of ASSUMED DIS-TRUST and ASSUMED PERCEIVED THREATS. In the past a T would have scared me zooming in on things like this, but not with this T. For me feeling that what happened years ago is not the reality of the world I live in today.

 

[grit]

Thank you so much recoveringfromptsd for your comments. I really appreciate you sharing your story with me. It is harrowing for one person. It is a lot of trauma and I can relate to some of them from my own childhood. I can only imagine how your childhood experience was impacted by those you supposed to trust after your parents. I have to say I am so happy you find this T who is so compassionate and understanding. how often do we ever meet a person who gets us? I am very hopeful for you and truly again appreciated your sharing.

I want to make a correction or clarify according to your comment about:

But for me the cannot hurt me today does not apply to me today. But that's because my trauma involved the very agency that was required by law to protect me. In today's world its hard for me to not see every moment as a perceived potential threat, sometimes the threats become real. It has left me with feeling as if everything is a potential threat.

What I meant by that is this: I did not even know I was unsafe deep inside in my cells until I came to therapy. I felt I need to know my environment very well to conduct myself - I was controlling what I can so I mitigate my inner feeling of unsafety this way. I felt I was protective not threatened or unsafe. My feelings were confused and I was not labelling them appropriately to understand myself better. I am protective of myself sounded good to me than I am unsafe - but same feeling on my body/tissuee. So I was in cognitive dissonance sort of living. What kept me safe was I could easily say NO than yes. So if I felt a person or situation was not good, I just said no. I did not know I was dissociating, I thought I cope with stress by sleeping another misunderstanding at cognitive level.

I had a lot of psychosis in treatment with therapy the first time in my life, I lost my sanity or whatever walls I built. I want to emphasise, "what hurt me cannot hurt me comment"means, my biggest fear as a baby (intellectually speaking) was to die, pure annihilation by the amount of trauma I experienced. , so I dissociated as a baby just to live. As adult, I made a decision to see what I was afraid of (arising from relationship with the therapist). I could and was willing to risk all my health, my job, my relationship to see what laid ahead. I took a risk with experiencing psychosis in the therapy room. I let it go! I risked all. And for me it paid off.

What would have happened if I experience psychosis outside of therapy, I had a safety plan with my therapist and my husband. I suppose the only thing I earned as an adult is I trusted my husband 100% and then the therapist 100%. Where or how I internalized that trust is life time of taking mini risks with relationships and friendships and having a huge family where we have good and bad relationship. I experienced a lot of intimate issues to know I was the culprit and learned how to make peace with my feelings even if I could not name them. By the time I went to therapy, I was depleted of all good parts. I was feeling without my defenses, I am truly the most despicable, dangerous, difficult and annoying, hateful and violent person. And I just never acted on them! On the other hand, my mother told me she does not have one bad bone in her body. she never made a single mistake in her life! I have become the mirror for my mother's all bad parts.

Feeling abandoned by my therapist is painful and honestly has come the most inopportune. It was also affecting my relationship and I was generally experiencing detachment. I had to tell my husband what I was feeling. I need him to know what I am going through so my actions are not misconstrued or misunderstood - just in case my feelings are showing up without my knowledge.

I wasted a lot of time mopping around and doing the basics for couple weeks but I feel the therapist "failing" me is like making myself to take that part back and find a relief - this is technical speaking but organically realising my yearning for the therapist was wanting a support was a relief in the body. Even a mother can have a rupture. So I am forgiving a therapist failing me and I am OK finding that unbearable and still experiencing. I rather risk of embarrassment, humiliation with the therapist in my safe space than carry this feeling and let it slip into my life, my relationship and my work. So I am risking my life to survive once again but this time, thank goodness, I am in a better place than with my mother when I was so young and dependent on her. Depending my therapist is OK for me.Depending my husband is OK for me. On a good day, I know I can do it and a bad day, I am so lucky.

I can see how that sentence of I can risk or I cannot be destroyed can be taken certain way. All I am saying is to go to therapy is to risk re-truama. It has to be that bad but the end result must be different for healing to occur. Otherwise, as you experienced it over and over, it is dangerous. But I trust myself. I trust I can handle some emotions because my present life is not threatening anymore. I have to give up my "fake power" from my childhood that said, I must do everything alone. No more. I need people to help me and allowing this even in my head and heart is healing for me.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

@grit - sorry for having to do this post differently multiquote did not do what I expected, and I did not want to repeat the effort involved. So I inserted in italics my words in responses to selected parts of your words.

I felt I need to know my environment very well to conduct myself - I was controlling what I can so I mitigate my inner feeling of unsafety this way.

In many ways we share this, for me I literally fall apart and even become suicidal when I have situational uncertainty. I often enter a disassociated state I was told by Sheppard Pratt is an emotional flashback. I literally cannot function unless I have some control over my environment, which is think is sort of close to your "know my environment very well to conduct myself". For me however I exert my need to feel safe with my environment by having some control over it is almost a must for me to be able to function. I don't do well with unknowns when it comes to life itself.

I felt I was protective not threatened or unsafe.

I wish I had it that way, I always feel threatened and unsafe. I see the world as a bad place not worth being a part of. My life dealings with the world is based on what levels of mis-trust and perceived potential is involved. Real trust involves on faith accepting the uncertainty that a threat is not a concern, when I always see what is a around me as a potential threat waiting to happen.

I know where this comes from. It comes from being somewhere I had no input or choice in, being subjected to physical, sexual and mental abuse at the institutional level, complaining to DSS the very agency under CAPTA that is supposed to be the taker, investigator, referrer for action of abuse reports involving juvenile and vulnerable adult victims, only to be told to live with the abuse. I was trapped in an ultra abusive environment with no control or influence over my environment and autonomy of my own body. Even people in prison even death row have autonomy of there body just not their environment, so in some ways they had better than I did at the time.

What kept me safe was I could easily say NO than yes. So if I felt a person or situation was not good, I just said no. I did not know I was dissociating, I thought I cope with stress by sleeping another misunderstanding at cognitive level.

I think a difference for me is I approach every situation as not good, and hope I will be ok. But that approach forces me to be very manipulative of my environment in order to have a sense of potential safety. Reality is I can not see beyond potential safety.

I had a lot of psychosis in treatment with therapy the first time in my life, I lost my sanity or whatever walls I built.

My trauma was such I maintained walls that I would not let down for 40 years. Safety was a huge problem. And when hospitalized or outpatient I never opened up, so it became all about safety. Nothing ever changed. I remember being in day treatment in group, and I would always sit back in a corner where I felt safer because it was behind others and I was not completely with the group my participation was always superficial (safe as in can't feel bad if I don't risk). Now that I have opened up I feel like I am reliving some trauma, but my T in my case thinks that reconciling my trauma in controlled steps is the only way to reconcile my maladaptive thinking and behaviors.

I had a safety plan with my therapist and my husband.

I have a safety plan and a contract with my therapist. Both hold me accountable for not coping safely. The contract is not just a "I wont do this or that" like a lot of safety contracts, mine has some real consequences, like loosing the right to drive. That does not mean I might break parts of the contract, and not be held accountable. My T stresses the result. She expects some periods where I can't abide by the contract. Whether I am held accountable is determined by the result from things like checking into the hospital.

As to intimacy and mates, I am so crippled with my hyper-vigilance's and maladaptive behaviors, and my constant fear of harm its impossible for me ever form such relationships. My relationships tend to be superficial "safe" relationships. Sometimes I fill the human need by seeking short relationships where I can't be hurt, in ways that are extreme (numbing).

Feeling abandoned by my therapist is painful and honestly has come the most inopportune.

My T sort of abandoned me in the sense she crossed boundaries multiple times that made her a threat to me. I had no choice but to terminate with her. But I wanted to do it in a proper transitional way. I got forced into doing it abruptly. And that left me with no T and no Psychiatrist. My new provider could not do an intake the next day, but i got in the following day. In between that I was in crisis and unsafe because that set of circumstances left me with situational uncertainty. It also was sort of an abandonment to me.

All I am saying is to go to therapy is to risk re-truama. It has to be that bad but the end result must be different for healing to occur. Otherwise, as you experienced it over and over, it is dangerous.

That is so true, being dangerous, I can attest to by having been hospitalized for safety over 50 times, before I opened up. I am in that re-trauma by therapy phase, and I know that without the therapy that truly addresses my maladaptive thoughts and behaviors which means dealing with painful moments in my trauma, life would hold nothing for me. I did not for 40 years, at least now people actually care and I am going forward with my T so hopefully I can have even a glimpse of a sense of safety in the world around me.

But I trust myself. I trust I can handle some emotions because my present life is not threatening anymore.

for me, even though life is not threatening, in my head it is, I can't live in a world that just is, I have to be in a world of self-engineered safety by having control of my environment.


I do have to say I am lucky to have the T that I do, she gets it, partly because she used to be a teacher, in an abusive relationship, tried to take her life, ended up on same psych unit I have been on twice, before she got her therapist credentials.
She can relate to trauma because she has been there herself. But she does not let me get away with much, I hate that and I love it that she does that.

 

[Rani G2]

Very in theory but what does it look like in every day to day feeling?

@grit. This is nothing new because you have probably got all the theories. For me, there was a secure attachment to my mother. Things started to fall apart due to an abusive father, neighbours, environment etc.

When parents/caregivers are not willing/not able to assist the child to regulate the effects of long-term abuse, emotional neglectmemt, maltreatment etc how does the child make sense of their world? How does a relationship look like? How Do we learn how to relate to others adequately? Feel worthy, respected etc...

Abandoment also meant (For me..)That there are certain emotional parts that react in a certain dynamic in order to survive. Trusting others is dangerous for these parts.. so in order to never ever encounter danger again there is a needing to control. What I had to learn was to get to know those emotional parts... in the best way I could. These parts are are not aware of the presence. In order to integrate them my T had to get in touch with these parts, their (Our) horrors, fear, they must express these ambivalent feelings. Some parts also solidarised with the perperator in order to survive.

This has helped me so far...

 

[grit]

@grit. This is nothing new because you have probably got all the theories. For me, there was a secure attachment to my mother. Things started to fall apart due to an abusive father, neighbours, environment etc.

When parents/caregivers are not willing/not able to assist the child to regulate the effects of long-term abuse, emotional neglectmemt, maltreatment etc how does the child make sense of their world? How does a relationship look like? How Do we learn how to relate to others adequately? Feel worthy, respected etc...

Abandoment also meant (For me..)That there are certain emotional parts that react in a certain dynamic in order to survive. Trusting others is dangerous for these parts.. so in order to never ever encounter danger again there is a needing to control. What I had to learn was to get to know those emotional parts... in the best way I could. These parts are are not aware of the presence. In order to integrate them my T had to get in touch with these parts, their (Our) horrors, fear, they must express these ambivalent feelings. Some parts also solidarised with the perperator in order to survive.

This has helped me so far...

Thanks @PURUSHA

I started to dissociate and started to keep track of the feelings coming up and what they were against., you are right. My body was trying to avoid depression and weirdly I sort started to watch over myself and let go of control. I felt deep sadness that border depression like lack of concentration, tiredness, apathetic, and general distrust. the biggest feeling was I felt sort of detached from all, my therapist, my husband, my school, from people and life...it was kind of lost. I did talk to my husband (I just shared what i felt) and asked if it is ok I do not talk much or do much...so I could sit with it. I even said I was breaking down like going crazy and he was really good and said you are not going crazy but if you want to take time, go ahead.

I sat on it, let it go through my body. I started to remember the death of a special person in my life. the process was awful but i sat through it.

I am OK now. I feel lighter and grateful I did not breakdown but I think now that was all in my head - body memory.